Organizational and economic restructuring of Bulgarian agriculture in terms of European integration

N. Koteva

Abstract: The emanating structural changes of the agricultural farms from the Bulgarian accession to the EU and their main determining factors are of interest of economic researchers. The aim of the present article is to analyze and draw the main directions of the organizational-economic restructuring of Bulgarian agriculture in terms of the CAP of the EU. In the study are used the following scientific methods: comparative analysis, the method of statistical grouping, expert assessment, etc. The structural changes of size and legal status of the agricultural farms were analyzed. The results of the study are as follows: • Permanent trend of decrease of the number of smallscale farms; • Acceleration of the process of consolidation of medium-scale sized agricultural farms; • increase of the marginalization between the size of the agricultural farms by legal status and deepening of the bi-polar model of organizational-economic structure of agriculture; • The structural processes are mainly accelerated by the impact of the direct payments, but the support does not contribute for the creation of a rational organizationaleconomic structure of the agriculture; • agriculture remains prevailingly small-scale, with a dominating share of the retail farms of individuals and an insignificant share of huge economic structures of legal entities, developing in economic borders commeasurable with the European ones.

Keywords: CAP; direct payments; EU integration; organizational and economic structure of Bulgarian agriculture; utilized agricultural area

Date published: 2018-02-21